


Betrayal

by This_is_your_Heichou_speaking



Series: Cross My Heart [15]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Set when Roku dies in canon, Thus the character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 10:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12340533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_is_your_Heichou_speaking/pseuds/This_is_your_Heichou_speaking
Summary: Unbetaed.





	Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed.

As the man collapsed, Sozin straightened his back and looked down on him. His face changed, all the panic and camaraderie and repentance sliding off his face like water.   
  
He watched as his once best friend lay dying, begging his for his aid and cruelly quelled the urge to help. ' _Weak_ ', his mind jeered at him as his heart protested, so instead he told Roku the truth. The only truth left to tell.   
  
"Without you," he said, eyes hardening, "all my plans are suddenly possible."   
  
This had not been planned. This was not what he'd wanted, but here he was - his only obstacle at his feet in submission. If Sozin was anything, he was a man who took advantage of circumstance. Fate worked for him, not the other way around.   
  
And he wanted to cheer with his success, laugh in the face of Roku's pain but the old man was looking at him with such sad, sad eyes that he couldn't find it in himself. "I have a vision for the future, Roku," he tried to justify, to explain, but the Avatar's eyes were filled with such disappointment he wanted to run as far as he could. And then-   
  
And then Roku said the words that made him burn with both sorrow and shame.   
  
"Is this what you did to Harry?" he asked, barely able to breathe between the painful coughs that wracked his frail, elderly frame but able to say this, able to make Sozin remember the man he'd once betrayed - yes, just like this - as he too looked on with sad, sad eyes, and had he told himself this then too? Had he convinced his heart to quieten, shut away the part of him that burned in aversion at even the _thought_  of hurting his beloved? Is that how he'd done it, how he'd told himself it wasn't his _fault_? He breathed, and all of a sudden he just wanted to burn it all to the ground, and there was _so much hatred_ \-   
  
But who did he hate? Did he hate Harry, for not joining him, for not supporting his life's mission? Or perhaps this world, for putting them in such circumstance that there was no other choice, that he had to hurt the man he loved so?   
  
But that was a long time ago, and Sozin had become bitter by now, unable to love and grieve as freely as he once had been able to so passionately, back when he was still young.   
  
"Perhaps," he whispered, and they both knew this was as much an admission of his guilt as Sozin would ever allow himself to make.   
  
"You betrayed him." Roku was dying, and Sozin realised that he should leave before he too fell prey to the toxic gas and heat of the volcano that was tearing this island asunder but he couldn't help himself.   
  
"Betrayed _him_? he replied, tone incredulous and rising in volume. "He betrayed _me_! He should have stood by my side!"   
  
He didn’t know what he wanted from Roku, but it certainly wasn’t this. The old man barely seemed affected, merely smiling sadly as he looked upon the face of a man who was once his brother, looked upon the face of a man who had become his enemy, and wondered where he had gone wrong. He wondered if he'd have been able to save Harry, had he not been so lax in his duties. There was barely any breath left in him, and he knew that he couldn't change Sozin's mind now. And yet-   
  
"And yet, he loved you," he whispered, and watched the emotions flicker across Sozin's face as the man failed to hide them in time. He knew what the man was remembering, knew also that it wouldn't change a thing but what kind of Avatar would be if he didn't even try? What kind of a man had he been, that he'd not even known the end of his own friend?   
  
He remembered, in his last moments, the harsh words he used to discourage his emperor, and wished he could go back and soften them. He remembered Harry, the three of them laughing and eating and teasing each other, and recalled the day he was told Harry was no more. Remembered the cold face of the Firelord as the man recounted his lover’s death, and how he had not questioned further despite the unease in his heart.   
  
He wished he could have done something. But he was forced to realise that he was only human. Hindsight was 20/20, and now Roku wondered if, in his quest to please everyone, he'd somehow managed to fail them all instead.   
  
Sozin left then, left behind the dying body of his greatest obstacle and his best friend, and remembered soft green eyes and gentle, tanned hands, remembered a smile that shone like the sun until he'd so cruelly snuffed it out, and remembered that once upon a time he'd killed the boy he'd claimed to love so intensely.   
  
What kind of a monster was he?   
  
And it was now, in the aftermath of the destruction of everything he'd held dear, that Sozin realised what he'd done. He didn't hate Harry - how could he? - and not the world to which he was so attached. No, he hated himself, for being _capable_ , for hurting the one person he'd promised to never hurt and what were his promises worth now, when he’d broken the biggest if them all?   
  
' _I'm sorry_ ', he'd said as he lay dying, and Sozin had dismissed the words in his rage, thought _too little, too late_ , and later he'd wrapped all the pain and regret and put them away where no light could touch it. And now, with a few words, Roku had brought those words to the forefront of his mind, and Sozin hurt at the thought of _being_  himself, disgusted at the thought of having done the things he'd done.   
  
Once upon a time, he'd been content in the joy and love of his kingdom and his consort, and then he'd grown greedy. And though he was sorry, how could he stop now? When the world was on the edge of being united under one banner, when the comet - and wasn't that a divine sign in itself? - was coming to greet him?   
  
He remembered soft kisses under the moonlight, the sensation of loving an agile, beloved body on soft sheets. He remembered pleading and demands to _stop, you're hurting them, balance must be kept Sozin don't you_  see _the pain and death you cause_ , and locked them all away again.   
  
He'd been so desperate. But it was too late for regrets.   
  
His dragon flew, and he didn't look back.


End file.
